Posted by
Andrews on Tuesday, March 11, 2008 2:09:31 PM
I know it seems a bit presumptuous to criticize the pope, but I am afraid I must. As I said in the post before this, I think his efforts to update the seven deadly sins are misguided.
It reminds me of those attempts to "update" Shakespeare, which appear dated the moment they hit the stage. The original sins were timeless, basic human vices which anyone, Catholic or not, Christian or not, could recognize as human failings. They were timeless and have shown it by lasting unchanged for centuries.
In contrast, the new sins will age as well as flared pants, pompadours or zoot suits. It seems in a century or two, reminding people of the deadly sin of "environmental pollution" or "drug dealing" will be as "timely" as saying "keep on truckin'" or "gabba gabba hey!" or asking Kookie to lend you his comb. The pope has taken very real concerns, but concerns that are very much of their time, and tried to elevate them to the timeless plane of the original seven deadly sins. And it just doesn't work. It sounds too much like someone saying "Mariah Carey is the most beautiful woman who ever lived", definitely a product of its time, and overwhelming in its hubris.
And even if we postulate that these new seven will be "timeless" and last forever, they still lack the simple elegance of the original seven. They are not simple, one word descriptions of basic vices common to all men. What is drug dealing? It is not even clear what the sin is. Does my doctor commit a deadly sin by giving me morphine? Is it a deadly sin where the drug is legal, or only where the state has prohibited it? It is too vague to be a deadly sin. Wrath is easy to define with specificity, drug dealing is not.
Nor do the new sins have the beautiful symmetry of the originals, with sins matched to virtues. Forgiveness is the cure of wrath, chastity of lust. What is the cure of drug dealing? "Not drug dealing"? That hardly sounds like a holy virtue for the new millennium. I somehow doubt that it will be considered a virtue that a man did not commit genetic engineering or failed to pollute. The beautiful symmetry of the originals is just lacking.
So, in short, I just do not find that these new "deadly sins" really merit the appellation of the "New Seven Deadly Sins". Had the pope published an encyclical denouncing these, that would have been fine, but to declare them the new deadly sins seems to give too much credit, too much timelessness to transitory sins peculiar to this moment.